Verbs
take first place in this language. The Yaghans had a dramatic verb to
capture every twitch of the muscles, every possible action of nature or
man. The verb Iya means 'to moor your canoe to a streamer of kelp'; okon
'to sleep in floating canoe' (and quite different from sleeping in a hut,
on the beach or with your wife); ukomona 'to hurl your spear into a shoal
of fish without aiming for a particular one'; wejna 'to be loose or easily
moved as a broken bone or the blade of a knife' - 'to wander about or
roam, as a homeless or a lost child' - 'to be attached yet loose, as an
eye or bone in its socket' - 'to swing, move or travel' - or simply 'to
exist or be'.